Rolling blackouts hit Southwest County Monday, implemented for
the first time by Southern California Edison as a measure to
curtail power usage during a Stage 3 power alert, when the state's
power reserves drop below 1.5 percent. Officials said more
blackouts are expected today.

Starting around noon Monday, Edison shut down power to 12
different groups of consumers in Riverside County. The groups
varied in size and were not geographically linked, said Lynn Rowe,
emergency services coordinator for the Riverside County Office of
Emergency Services.

Around 12:40 p.m., an outage struck a mostly residential area in
northwest Lake Elsinore, shutting down power to about 1,200 homes
and two schools for about an hour, Lake Elsinore city spokesman
Mark Dennis said.

"I went home for lunch and I didn't think it was related to the
rolling blackouts," he said. "When I got back to City Hall, I found
out it was."

Two intersections near Terra Cotta Middle School were without
traffic signals during the outage.

Residents in the Paloma del Sol section of Temecula and nearby
areas also lost power for about an hour in the early afternoon.
Aaron Adams, a city senior management analyst said he learned of
the outage from area residents, not from Edison representatives.
The Riverside County Office of Emergency Services confirmed that
the outage was due to a blackout.

No outages were reported in Murrieta.

Scattered outages were reported in Menifee, where power went out
at the school district office and at Callie Kirkpatrick Elementary
School. District officials said the outages occurred shortly after
noon and lasted as long as two hours.

In Lake Elsinore, Terra Cotta Middle and Withrow Elementary
schools were without power during part of the afternoon. Principals
at the two schools said the day continued as close to normal as
possible. Students were moved near windows to get their work done
and any computer- or television-based lessons were postponed.

"Our teachers adjusted and everything went smoothly," said Terra
Cotta Principal Mike Sepulveda. "The front office was shut down and
that would be a concern if these things start occurring on a
continual basis."

The middle school has a generator that keeps the kitchen
refrigerators, nurses office and intercom system running, but
Sepulveda said Terra Cotta is reduced to one phone line when the
power is out, which could be a potential source of frustration for
parents calling in.

At Withrow, the day ran smoothly as well, said Principal Bruce
Quimby.

"The biggest inconvenience was the lack of air conditioning,"
Quimby said. "If it had been 10 to 15 degrees hotter it could have
been a real problem. As it was, we just opened the windows and it
worked out well."

Temperatures in the area topped out around 90 degrees Monday,
according to the National Weather Service.

Lake Elsinore Unified School District spends more than $2
million per year on electricity and anticipates its bills to
increase by $600,000 due to the state's energy crisis, district
spokesman Roy Southwick said. The district has come up with a
short-term plan to reduce its power bills by limiting the times
parking lot lights are on and adjusting thermostat settings on
cooling and heating units.

Over the long term, Southwick said, the district is exploring
the feasibility of forming an energy co-op with other local school
districts to produce electrical power and the potential of
installing gas-powered micro-turbine generators at school sites as
an alternative energy source.

Around 4:30 p.m., Edison officials indicated that there was
sufficient power for the blackouts to stop but at 6 p.m, the
California Independent System Operator, which controls the state's
power grid, ordered additional blackouts.

Traffic signals, such as the ones in Lake Elsinore, are also
affected by the rolling blackouts. California Highway Patrol
officials advised motorists to approach intersections without
working traffic signals as four-way stops. If two vehicles enter an
intersection at the same time, drivers should yield the right of
way to the vehicle on the immediate right.